#3. Impressionism

I would like to talk about A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of LA Grande Jatte  by Georges Seurat. This painting is one of typical art works by Georges Seurat who is founder of Neo-Impressionism. The painting represents a sunny Sunday afternoon and many people spend time together in the park. Seurat followed analysis of light from Impressionism however he dissatisfied with instinctive and intuitive attitude of production is excessively tied to light and he wanted to invest strict theory and science. He introduced Pointillism, which is returns color to primary colors and composition with small strokes of color, it keeps unity and color principle of Impressionism to systematization. In this painting, the park, on the island of the Grande Jatte, is just west of Paris was easy of access by train. There are about 50 people that have variety of social class types and jobs and wearing a fashionable clothes. For men, a suit and black hat with cane stick that looks like gentlemen. For women, looks like that two piece suit with big volume in the hip side and carry a parasol style is really popular at that time. People are just taking a walk, looking other people, taking a boat, or fishing. Trees made roof and shade, also on the upper left side, there is cloud which is just like fine soft hair. The space in the painting is made out of linear perspective from Renaissance so people become smaller regularly when it goes to the back. In the middle of the painting, a little girl who is wearing a bright white dress with as the central figure, warm colors and clear hue are balanced in vertically and horizontally in composition. Also, in the painting, figures are placed in elaborate and detailed composition. All the figures are followed vitruvian Man so head proportion is 1/7 than body. Therefore, all the people, who has generalized body and face, are not expressing any feeling and there is no interchange between them.Seurat wanted to describe modern people from city as most modern people also record as great classic style. As result, secured stabilization as solidity and simplify but his figures look stiffen and unnatural. Therefore, this artwork is leisure hours in city images as Impressionism and a images which is described modern social class's neglect and affectation as realism. According to the textbook, In theory, these juxtaposed small strokes of color would merge in the viewer's eye to produce the impression of other colors. When perceived from a certain distance they would appear more luminous and intense than the same colors seen separately, while on close observation Seurat's strokes and colors would remain distinct and separate, creating an almost abstract arrangement of color and shape. In this painting, Seurat used 11 colors and he rather than mixed all the colors but put as a dot with purest hue. So when we look at this painting from a distance, it looks beautiful. Pointillism artist thought that eyes should same as camera lens and Seurat put his principles into practice. Science theory of light has problem which is express the object with monochromatic. Seurat thought that object reveals through the variety color contrast. So he made up forms as countless dots with complementary colors. This form shows that small strokes of colors would merge in the viewer's eyes. Seurat worried about color's composition and combination which is reveal the world. Also he thought that when dissolve the elements of color and then restructure, it could close to a law of nature. Therefore, I guess that this painting shows not Seurat's subjectivity but a theory about the world. Seurat believed that he could make more clear and persuasive expression through this technique. The goal of Pointillism is reproduce a experience more vividly. Seurat also used advanced materials, so it makes experimentation high. For example, he extracted yellow color from zinc so he expressed intense sunlight on the grass. I guess that it gave deep impression at that time. We are not sure that white dots makes more bright screen or special science knowledge would necessary.  However, I guess that the reason why viewer attractive to his painting is not only scientific things, but also marvelous that process the softly shake countless dots are change to attractive mess of image.